Configuring Message Spool Sizes

Event broker services spool Guaranteed messages using spool files. Message spools store the spool files, and the message spool size you choose should support the number of messages the spool may need to store. If the event broker service’s spool files are all in use, it can't receive any more messages until some spooled messages are acknowledged, which could free some space in the message spool.

If an event broker service reaches its maximum spool file usage, it returns negative acknowledgments (NACKs) to all publishing clients. You can configure thresholds to generate events when the message spool usage gets too high.

For more information about Message Spools, see Message Spooling.

To provide larger message spool sizes, Solace offers message spool expansion. Message spool expansion provides message spool sizes of up to 6 TB. It also allows you to scale up the message spool size of in-service event broker services. Message spool expansion requires event broker service 10.7.1 and later. To get the message spool expansion, contact Solace.

Fore more information, see the following sections:

Default Message Spool Sizing

The service class type you choose for an event broker service dictates its default message spool size, and for Customer-Controlled Regions, the persistent disk space required to accommodate the message spool. Public Region and Dedicated Region deployments can access larger message spool sizes of up to 6 TB with message spool expansion limits. For more information, contact Solace.

The table below shows the default message spool values and persistent disk requirements by service class type and event broker version.

Message spools use physical disks to store messages. Even with an overhead, some types of messaging exchange patterns and message delivery modes can cause the disk storage to exhaust before reaching spool capacity. If either the message spool or physical disk space is exhausted, we offer message spool expansion to allow you to expand the message spool size of event broker services.

Service Class Type / Connections Default Message Spool Size Minimum Disk Size for Each Broker
Version 10.6.1 and earlier Version 10.7.1 and later Version 10.6.1 and earlier Version 10.7.1 and later

Developer

10 GB

25 GB

40 GB

35 GiB

Enterprise 250 (Up to 250 connections)

25 GB

50 GB

50 GiB

65 GiB

Enterprise 1K (Up to 1000 connections)

50 GB

200 GB

100 GiB

260 GiB

Enterprise 5K (Up to 5000 connections)

200 GB

400 GB

400 GiB

520 GiB

Enterprise 10K (Up to 10,000 connections)

300 GB

600 GB

600 GiB

780 GiB

Enterprise 50K (Up to 50,000 connections)

500 GB

800 GB

800 GiB

1040 GiB

Enterprise 100K (Up to 100,000 connections)

500 GB

1000 GB

1000 GiB

1300 GiB

Configurable Message Spool Sizing

If you need message spool sizes larger than the defaults for a service class type, and are using event broker service 10.7.1 and later, you can get message spool expansion limits. Message spool expansion limits allow you to both configure larger spool sizes during service creation and expand the message spool size of an existing event broker service. Message spool expansion allows you to configure spool sizes of up to 6 TB. For more information, see the following sections:

Considerations for Configurable Message Spool Sizing

Consider the following details when either configuring or scaling up message spool sizes in all deployment regions:

  • Both configuration and scale up of message spool sizes require event broker service 10.7.1 or later.
  • You cannot reduce the message spool size of an event broker service after configuring it beyond service defaults, or scaling-up message spool size.
For Public Regions and Dedicated Regions
  • The ability to configure and scale-up message spool sizes requires message spool expansion limits. For more information, contact Solace.

  • You can view the usage of your message spool expansion limit in Account Details > Service Limits. For more information, see Requesting Message Spool Expansions.

For Customer-Controlled Region
  • You own the infrastructure in a Customer-Controlled Region and can always increase or scale-up message spool size, providing your underlying Kubernetes infrastructure meets the 30% disk-space overhead. High availability (HA) event broker services require two of these disks (a primary and a backup). For example, a 5k HA service configured with a 500 GB message spool requires two 650 GB disks. For more information about minimum disk size for event broker services, see Message Spool Size Requirements.

    The minimum size is 10 GB for all cloud providers and maximum disk sizes are as follows:

    • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5TB
    • Microsoft Azure- 32TB
    • Google Cloud Platform- 64 TB

Other considerations may apply depending on if you are configuring message spool size during event broker service creation, or scaling-up the message spool size of an existing event broker service. The sections below cover those considerations.

Configuring Message Spool Size During Event Broker Service Creation

With message spool expansion, you can define message spool size when creating a service.

Deployments in Public Regions and Dedicated Region need message spool expansion limits to configure message spool size during service creation. For more information, contact Solace.

Considerations for Configuring Message Spool Size During Service Creation

Consider the following details when configuring message spool sizes during event broker service creation:

Configuring Message Spool Size During Service Creation

To configure message spool size during service creation, perform these steps:

  1. Create a service as described in Creating Event Broker Services .
  2. After you select the service type and number of connections, click Customize. The Customize button is available only if you have GB available for message spool expansion.
  3. Enter a value for the size of the message spool in the New Message Spool Size (GB) field and click Apply.
    • If you enter a number greater than the remaining GB available in your message spool expansion, the Apply button is disabled.
    • You can specify up to 6000 GB if you have sufficient remaining GB in your message spool expansion capability.
    • You can click Expanded Spool Size Billing to see the GB remaining for other message spool expansion.

    If you specify a value that's too small for the number of connections that you chose, this could impact performance of your event broker service.

Scaling-Up Message Spool Sizing for an Event Broker Service

Deployments in Public Regions and Dedicated Region need message spool expansion limits to scale-up message spool size of an existing event broker service. For more information, see the Considerations for Configurable Message Spool Sizing.

If you are unsure of your message spool size requirements, event broker services feature scalable message spools. Scalable message spools allow you to increase the message spool size of an existing service without downtime.

Considerations for Scaling-Up the Message Spool Size for an Existing Service

Consider the following details when scaling-up message spool size for an existing event broker service:

  • See the Considerations for Configurable Message Spool Sizing for considerations that affect both configuration and scale-up of message spool sizes.
  • While possible, Solace does not fully support scaling message spool sizes above 4TB for event broker service in an Azure Kubernetes cluster. If you require scaling above 4TB and you encounter issues, contact Solace for support.
  • Specifications related to scalable message spool sizing, including availability and implementation, can vary by cloud provider. Consult the Kubernetes and storage documentation for your cloud provider for full support specifications.

Scaling-Up Message Spool Size for an Existing Service

With message spool expansion, you can scale up the message spool size of an existing event broker service. To scale-up the message spool size of an in-service event broker service:

  1. Log in to the PubSub+ Cloud Console if you have not done so yet. The URL to access the Cloud Console differs based on your authentication scheme. For more information, see Logging In to the PubSub+ Cloud Console.
  2. Select Cluster Manager on the navigation bar.
  3. Select the event broker service with the message spool you want to scale up. If the event broker service is not listed, make sure you have the right environment selected. For more information, see Selecting Environments.
  4. On the Service Details page, select the Manage tab and then click Advanced Options.
  5. Scroll to the Message Spool Size tile and click Edit.
  6. Enter a value into the New Message Spool Size (GB) field and click Apply.
    • The field's starting value is the event broker service's current message spool size.
    • You can specify up to 6000 if you have sufficient remaining GB in your message spool expansion limits.

    Pending appears next to the Current Message Storage (GB). The Pending status disappears once the scale up is complete.

    Once the increase in message spool size is complete, you must update the size of your queues in Broker Manager so they use the new storage space. For more information, see Configuring Queues.